Score one from the swamp. A source that has asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals has informed me that he was present in August 2014 when McMaster was the featured speaker for the President’s Lecture Series at National Defense University in Washington, D.C. McMaster addressed an assembly of all the students in the colleges of the National Defense, including the National War College, the College of International Security Affairs (CISA), the Dwight D. Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy (formerly the Industrial College of the Armed Forces), and the others. There was, therefore, a large crowd, and multiple witnesses.
In his address, McMaster said flatly: “The Islamic State is not Islamic.”
Blogger cite McMaster’s speech at Virginia Military Institute where he says “a perverted interpretation of religion”, which is pretty close.
About four-minute mark:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcESByl9rpc